


A Different Kind of Star

by habenaria_radiata



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Age Difference, And the Trials and Tribulations Therein, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Future Fic, Get Together, Humor, Slice of Life, Teaching an Old Man How To Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29251743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/habenaria_radiata/pseuds/habenaria_radiata
Summary: With the Phantom Thieves now disbanded, business at Untouchable is in a bit of a slump. In an effort to boost their lagging sales, Akira convinces Iwai to give digital advertising a try.It works out better than either of them could have ever anticipated.
Relationships: Iwai Munehisa/Kurusu Akira
Comments: 19
Kudos: 39
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	A Different Kind of Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cinereous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinereous/gifts).



> Thank you to A and D for beta reading this fic for me!

* * *

“I can’t believe you still do all that shit by hand.”

Iwai squinted at the paper flattened beneath his fingers. He was content to ignore Masato, but the bastard was equally content to keep hovering there anyway, leaning over the countertop and watching him work like he’d never seen a person handle a goddamned pen before.

“Move your ass,” he finally grunted. “You’re blockin’ the light.”

Masato did shuffle to the side, but he stayed right up against the counter so he could watch some more. Weirdo. “Seriously, Iwai, why don’t you just do it digitally?” he asked, bending one arm and resting his face in his palm. “They’ve got software that can do that kinda thing, you know? Doing it by hand is so old school.”

“Wouldn’t even know where to start.” Again, Iwai dismissed him and went back to his flyer in progress. He picked up the ruler beside him and laid it carefully across the page, adjusted it with little flicks of his fingertips until it was nice and even, then outlined the whole thing with smooth strokes of his pen. Maybe it was old school, but writing was free. Plus black and white copies were cheaper than color.

Before he had a chance to start pestering him some more, the swing of the front door snagged Masato’s attention. Iwai could see the man’s head turn from the corner of his eyes, but he didn’t bother glancing up himself. Not until a familiar voice reached his ears. “Are you giving my boss a hard time, Masato-san?”

“Heh. Wouldn’t dream of it, Kurusu-san.” Masato moved properly then, taking a few steps back to give Akira the room she needed to get by him. She breezed past with two cups of coffee clutched in her pretty hands and leaned across the counter to pass one over to him.

“Hey, boss.”

Oh hell. There she was. Iwai just barely resisted the urge to squeeze his eyes shut and dug his teeth tighter around the stick of his sucker. “Hey yourself, kid,” he said back, his neck bent and his eyes pointed firmly downward. Maybe he could just spend the whole shift like that. Then again, she was still holding a cup out for him, and his desire not to spill coffee everywhere trying to grope for it like a dipshit was stronger than his desire not to look at her. Steeling his nerves, he forced himself to lift his head. Then he sat there and blinked like an idiot as she came into view, her curly head tilted and one of her eyebrows furrowed. Huh. She was actually wearing something reasonable today. How about that.

Her sweater was a surprisingly conservative black number that draped down over her ribs, with sleeves that hung loose around her forearms and a pair of blessedly normal-looking jeans that went all the way up to her waist. Maybe she’d finally gotten tired of being so damn cold in the shop all the time. Thank fuck. Last time Akira had shown up for a shift, she was sporting some ridiculous corset-looking t-shirt that squeezed her tits together so tightly he’d almost instituted a dress code right there on the spot. He’d managed to refrain. Barely.

Apparently she was in a merciful mood this morning. His nerves soothed, Iwai accepted the cup from her, sat back, and popped the lid off. Damn, it smelled especially good today. “Thanks for the coffee. You keep this up, I might get to be a connoisseur like you.”

“Heh. No problem.” She graced him with a small smile and a nod, winding around the counter and disappearing into the storage room to drop off her bag. Even after she closed the door behind her, the subtle scent of peach and something floral lingered in the air.

Iwai yanked his sucker free and blew at the steaming surface of his coffee. Akira made the best damn dirt water he’d ever had, and she knew just how sweet he liked it too. He still wasn’t thrilled that she’d gone right back to that shitty old cafe attic after coming all the way back to Tokyo for university, but she seemed happy enough there, and she brought him coffee every shift she worked. It’d just be ungrateful to complain at that point.

As Iwai took his first slow sip, Masato sighed and gazed over at the storage door, holding his face like some kind of lovesick school kid on White Day. Ugh. “I don’t know how you stand it. I’d be distracted all day long trying to work with her,” he commented. “I guess that time she spent away was really good for her if she came back looking like that, huh? Your girl’s a bona fide fox now, Iwai.”

Not this shit again. His nose scrunched hard, and he sank down lower in his seat as if it could possibly help him put any kind of meaningful distance between the two of them. “Would you knock it off? Quit creepin’ on my part-timer.” Regular or not, Iwai wouldn’t hesitate to throw his ass out into the alley the instant his presence made Akira even slightly uncomfortable. Besides, he was utterly beneath her notice if it took a new wardrobe for him to decide she was worth paying attention to after all.

Both Masato’s hands shot up. “Whoa, hey, I’m not creeping!” Despite his tone, he was obviously more amused than he was defensive. Iwai couldn’t decide if he was relieved that he wasn’t offended, or even more annoyed. “C’mon, man, that’s kinda harsh. There’s no harm in just looking, right? Why else would girls dress like that?”

“Huh?”

Shrugging, Masato turned his attention away from the door and eyed him with an expression Iwai decided very quickly that he did not like. It was the look of a man convinced he knew something you didn’t want him to. Hmph. He didn’t know shit. “You can’t tell me you don’t look too. Be honest.”

“That’s--”

For the second time, they were interrupted by the opening of a door, and Iwai was as intensely grateful for it as he had been for the first. Akira’s presence rendered that one-sided conversation functionally dead in the water. Good. Business was in enough of a slump that it was probably best he not run off one of the few regulars he had left in a fit of overprotective pique. Akira joined him behind the display cases, oblivious to the relief damn near rolling off him, and sat her own coffee down on a folded up napkin. “How has it been this morning? Busy?”

Iwai scoffed into his cup and took another sip. “Is it ever? Nah. Pretty quiet so far.” Save for Masato’s badgering, of course. His eyes cut over to her, and he opened his mouth to speak, stopped, and closed it. He’d barely had a chance to relish in all that relief he was afforded before it promptly evaporated.

Oh, for fuck’s _sake_. Those normal jeans she was supposed to be wearing were split open right along her sides, the edges held together with a thin silver chain that criss-crossed its way down her skin. He could see a strip of black cotton stretched around her hip. God damn it, why did she do this to him?!

He was still hunched uselessly over his coffee, trying hard to figure out the politest possible way he could ask her to wear more sensible outfits without mentioning boners anywhere in his sentence when Akira glanced down to see his flyer spread out beside the laptop. “Oh, are you making a new one?” Curiosity flashed across her face, and she leaned over his shoulder for a proper look at it. The soft rush of her perfume was almost as distracting as her bare hips in those stupid pants. “Trying to offload some of that old tactical gear, huh?”

“Yeah. Need to make room for some newer stuff. Masato ain’t very impressed with it, though. He’s been given’ me shit for bein’ ‘old school’.”

Masato didn’t look the slightest bit chagrined by any of that, either. Dickhead. He planted his elbows on the glass like he was perfectly at home and motioned towards the flyer. “Well it is, isn’t it? You tell him, Kurusu-san, he won’t listen to me. Who hand writes ads anymore?”

“Ha, maybe it is a little bit. Nothing wrong with old school, though, right?” Akira smiled again and lifted the paper up to examine it. Her fingernails were painted black today, but only the glossy tips caught the fluorescent light overhead. The rest of the coat was matte, more like the grip of a beretta than the barrel. Interesting. He didn’t even know they made nail polish like that. “I like it,” she continued, jarring him out of his dumb thoughts about her nails. “I think people appreciate it when you go through the effort of making something by hand. It’s more personal, like you care. Iwai’s handwriting is really cute too.”

“...It’s cute?”

Both of them ignored him, Masato making a face before he laughed and waved his hand again. “If you say so! I’ll let you finish in peace, then. I should head out anyway, my lunch break is about over. I’ll see you two later.”

“Bye, Masato-san.”

Akira set the flyer back down in front of him and waved the man goodbye. In the sudden silence, the knot of tension sitting between his shoulder blades finally loosened, and Iwai sat up straight again and grabbed his pen. As much as Akira’s questionable taste in fashion might take its toll on him, her presence was infinitely preferable to Masato’s, no matter what she decided to wear. To most anyone’s, really.

For the next ten minutes or so, neither of them spoke, Iwai working to finish up his flyer and Akira making her rounds about the store. She straightened messy shelves, dusted, and wiped down every inch of glass she could get her hands on. It never seemed to matter what time her shift started, Akira always cleaned the glass first. He never felt the need to ask why she bothered doing it in the middle of the day, when there’d almost certainly be more foot traffic to come along and ruin her hard work. She made her hatred for fingerprints known every time he caught her rubbing her cell phone screen against her boob when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. 

Eventually, she reappeared beside him with the used rag still clutched in her fingers. The sharp smell of artificial lemon and ammonium coming off it easily overpowered the peach of her perfume. “You know,” she said suddenly, resting a hip against the edge of the display cabinet. “I meant what I said earlier, but have you ever thought about giving it a shot? Doing digital advertising or anything?”

“Not you too,” he groused. His tone only made her laugh, though, and she tossed the damp rag onto a nearby shelf and rubbed at the back of her neck with an almost bashful little smile. Every time she did that, he was reminded of the mousey second-year who first wandered into his shop almost three years ago. Akira may have since ditched her big plastic nerd glasses and started wearing makeup, but she was the same curly-haired punkass she always was, too brave for her own good and with a spine of solid steel.

“Don’t be like that. I told you, I like your flyers. I’m not saying you should stop doing them. I’m just saying that advertising online would give you a chance to reach a way bigger audience, that’s all. And posting videos on YouTube is free.”

What in the world. Posting videos? That was the absolute last thing he’d expected her to say. He curled his arm behind himself and scratched at the back of his head, a mild frown overtaking him as his grey cap rode up along his skull. “Gotta say, I don’t think me bein’ in a commercial would do anything to drum up more business. Prolly the opposite. You? Sure. But I ain’t eager to put my mug on the internet.”

Again, Akira laughed at him, but it was lower this time, and strangely sweet. “I disagree, but no one said you have to film a traditional commercial. You could...I don’t know, maybe make something like a craft video?” A pause, and her face brightened. “I think that would be perfect, actually. Why don’t you film yourself building a model? People love that kind of thing, and it’s a good way to advertise both your products and your skills.”

“People watch that kinda shit?” They just sat on the internet and watched videos of other people doing crafts? The fuck? That sounded excruciating to him, but even beyond that-- “You know I don’t know dick about YouTube, kid. Or videos. If I tried to film anything, it’d be obvious amateur hour. My phone’s the best thing I got.” And there was still the whole matter of his face being...his face. He certainly hadn’t forgotten the time Akira’s awkward red-headed friend said he was ‘terrifying’ right in front of him, or the time the loud blond guy nearly pissed himself when Iwai had stood up too quickly.

Akira didn’t seem especially perturbed by any of the road blocks he’d presented. “You can borrow my phone if you want. It takes pretty good videos.” She grabbed the second chair he’d set out for her and sank down onto it, scooting it close to him and leaning forward with her elbows resting against her knees. “I think it could be really fun. I’ll help you film and edit one, and if you don’t like it when it’s done, we can scrap it. No harm done. What do you think?”

Hm. Iwai scratched at his cheek, looking back at her and her big, dark eyes that reminded him of gunmetal. He couldn’t shake his leeriness over the idea of it all, but he trusted her more than damn near anyone. She wouldn’t be encouraging it if she didn’t think it was a good one.

“...Alright,” he finally conceded. “Tell me what I gotta do.”

The smile she gave him was wide and pretty and as bright red as the gloves he remembered her wearing the day Joker had made her first public debut.

He was such a goddamned sucker for her it was embarrassing.

“You don’t have to do anything special, I promise. Just do what you normally do when you make models, but record it. Easy, right?”

“Still feel weird about recording myself,” Iwai grumbled. He tipped his head back and took a good swallow of his coffee. “But I guess there’s no gettin’ around that.”

Akira sighed at him and leaned backwards in her chair. Her long legs crossed at the ankle, and she dismissed his complaint with a casual flick of her fingers. “You don’t have to record your face, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t think I’ve ever watched one that does. You want to capture what all you’re doing, so it’ll just be your hands.”

That sounded better, at least. Iwai wedged his coffee between his legs and lifted said hands up to examine them. Truth be told, they weren’t in much better shape than his face. Ugly white mementos of his yakuza days were carved across every single one of his knuckles, and he had a hard time imagining that any of the crafters Akira apparently liked to watch had hair on the backs of their hands. After a bit, he scoffed and nodded towards her. “I think you should be the one to do it. You got them fancy nails.”

“Me?”

Surprise flashed across her face as she turned her hands over too, flipping them back and forth and shaking her head with a snort. “We’re advertising you, not me. May I?”

Both her arms thrust forward, her palms turned up and waiting before him in expectation. Iwai stared down at them like a moron. May she what? Apparently unsatisfied with his response time, Akira tilted yet closer, curled her fingers around both his hands, and tugged them back towards her. “Uh--”

Akira ignored him and inspected his palms. Her grip on him was gentle but utterly unyielding, and her skin was warm and so crazy soft he almost didn’t know what to do with himself. She’d never touched him quite like this before. The most contact they tended to have was nudging each other to get the hell out of the other’s way, or trading coffees and other snacks any time one of them made a run to the nearest konbini. It was strangely intense for being as innocent as it was.

Eventually, she surrendered his hands and sat back in her chair again. “Seriously, it’s fine. You have really nice hands, Iwai. And most people won’t even be paying attention to them anyway. You could record me making a gun if you really wanted to, but I don’t think that’s going to get you the audience you’re looking for. My skills are nowhere near your level. If you want to advertise Untouchable’s wares, I’m afraid you’re your only hope.”

“Great.”

She smiled back at him, slick and as foxy as Masato had described her. “You’ll be amazing. I’m certain of it.”

He was glad at least one of them was, because he had some serious doubts about this whole venture. But Akira had faith in him, and she’d never given him a reason not to have faith in her. Iwai trusted her with his life. Hell, he _owed_ her his life after everything that had happened with Tsuda and Masa. What was a dumb YouTube video between friends?

Grabbing his coffee cup again, he swung his arm out and waited until Akira tapped her own cup against his. “Here’s hoping we don’t make jackasses of ourselves.”

Akira twisted her mouth at him and smirked. “Words to inspire. Cheers, boss.”

“Cheers, kid.”

* * *

They decided to use the rest of the shift to make a tentative schedule for their first adventure in film-making. Of course, that wound up only taking about fifteen minutes of it, so they spent the remaining time on a YouTube crash course. Akira showed him a good chunk of videos by a handful of different people; they watched a young lady who liked to sculpt clay figures of anime women with some truly porn-grade knockers, a guy who made tiny polymer foods and sometimes animals for his goofy ass Nendoroids, and one man who seemed to do nothing but find the absolute most improbable material for a knife to be made of, then went and made a knife out of it. That guy was his favorite of the lot. He didn’t talk even once, and for all Iwai could tell, he was just a pair of disembodied, weirdly expressive hands with an extremely niche hobby. No reason he couldn’t be that too. Just with less expressive hands.

At the end of the night, he sent Akira home with her pay and headed back to his own apartment feeling at least marginally better about their prospects. None of the videos they’d seen were particularly complicated, and they had hundreds of thousands of hits between them. Hell, the crazy knife guy had millions all by himself. Talk about wild.

During their scheduling session, they’d agreed to dedicate their next shift to the first round of filming. It had been so slow lately that they’d no doubt have plenty of uninterrupted time to record, and in the brief moments that they didn’t, Akira would be able to handle the customers on her own while Iwai plugged away at the gun. He was growing less apprehensive about it all, but he had to admit, if only to himself, that he was grateful for the chance to have a small breather first. It was going to take a bit of effort to work himself up to being as camera ready as he was ever going to get.

The only issue was that he’d assumed the shift they were talking about was the next one Akira worked, so he was very much not expecting her to let herself into the shop the day right after their conversation. It was bright and early enough that he’d barely been open a full hour.

“Morning, boss.”

Looking up from his magazine, he frowned at her and cocked his head. “What’re you doin’ here?”

Akira made a face right back at him. Her hair was bundled up into a big ponytail, black curls raining down the back of her neck and two cute curlicues dangling on either side of her face. He’d always been charmed by the stubborn little swirl of hair that sat right over the bridge of her nose regardless of how the rest of it was styled.

She tilted slightly to the side and propped one of her hands on her hip. “What do you mean what am I doing here? We’re filming, aren’t we? You said next shift.”

“I said _your_ next shift,” he asserted. “Why would I ask you to come in on a day you ain’t even scheduled to work? What kinda asshole boss do you think I am?”

“Oh.” She bit her lip, painted a more maroony color than yesterday, then lifted one of her shoulders and smiled. “That does make more sense. Well, I’m here anyway, so might as well. Guess I’m just eager to get started.”

Never one to wait for his approval (or anyone else’s), Akira strode further inside, her ponytail bouncing, and she let herself behind the counter and dropped her purse onto the empty chair beside him. From her other hand dangled a plastic bag that looked like it’d come from one of the nearby electronic stores. He jerked his head towards it. “What’s that?”

“I got us some supplies on the way here. I figured our video will probably look like shit if I try to hold it myself the whole time, so I found a stand that will fit my phone. Oh, and a bigger microSD card just in case.”

“Wha- the hell’d you do that for?” Damn, she really was eager if she was blowing her own money to get all this going, not to mention coming in on her day off. Scowling, he got to his feet and held out an empty palm, punctuating the gesture with an impatient flex of his fingers. “Hand over the receipts, you fuckin’ punk. I’ll reimburse you for whatever you spent. Just tell me what you need next time and I’ll give you the money for it, you don’t gotta be shoppin’ for me on your off hours.”

Akira rolled her dark eyes at him and bent over to sift through the bag, but rather than produce the receipts he’d demanded, she grabbed the card and the box with the stand in it. “It’s not like this is stuff I can’t use. Maybe I wanted a bigger SD card for myself. Now come on, I want to get started.”

Bossy little shit. She took him by the wrist and dragged him towards the storage room, nudging the door open with her foot and pushing him down into the chair in front of his workbench. It was pretty well covered in paraphernalia, but in his defense, he’d been operating under the assumption he’d have at least a day or two to himself before he had to deal with all this. The whole surface was covered in an assortment of boxes, free floating gun parts, tubes of paint, and cups filled with different brushes. It didn’t strike him as being particularly photogenic, but Akira didn’t seem to be paying it any mind, so maybe it wasn’t that much of a problem. She stood near his arm and got to work unboxing her new stand with her tongue poking from the corner of her red mouth.

“Alright, let’s see what all I can do with this thing. I picked one that’s supposed to be super flexible.” With some effort, she got it set up and her phone attached, and while she played with it, Iwai busied himself clearing out just enough space that he could actually work. Hopefully none of the periphery would show up on camera. Then again, if it did, he imagined his imperious young director would be quick to tell him so.

“So...what are you thinkin’? Should I start with somethin’ simple? You’re the ‘craft video’ expert.”

At his shoulder, Akira scoffed and tossed him a sharp smile. “Don’t think I didn’t hear those air quotes in your voice. Something simple would probably be best, yeah, just to dip our toes in. Maybe a Glock? You can do those in your sleep, and it’ll keep the video short.” She straightened up again and went back to fiddling with her phone, rotating it at various angles and frowning critically at her screen.

It took each of them a good amount of dicking around, but eventually they were both ready to get started. Akira tapped at her screen and began to record. “Alright, boss. It’s all you.”

“Er, right. Uh, so, what do I do? Do I gotta talk while I’m goin’?”

Akira tittered at him and shook her head. “You don’t have to talk right now. I think most of them record and then make a voice over for it separately.”

“Oh. Huh. ...None of that’s gonna be in the video, is it?”

“I promise I’ll cut it out,” she assured him. It looked as if she was narrowly avoiding laughing at him the same way teenagers would laugh at their deeply uncool parents for trying to use slang two years past its expiration date. Rude. But then she paused and pursed her lips into a crooked frown. “Hm. You know, I’ve never actually edited a video before. But it can’t be that hard, can it?”

It became remarkably less uncomfortable knowing this was new territory for the both of them. Iwai made a noise of acknowledgement at her and got to work, disassembling the airsoft gun to get it ready for converting into a model. At the same time, Akira kept adjusting her phone with an adorably cranky wrinkle to her brow. “This angle doesn’t look right to me. It’s too far away and you can tell it’s from someone just standing off to the side. Damn, this is harder than it looks. How do all those people get right up against whatever they’re doing without the camera being in their way?”

She experimented it a moment longer before she huffed, blowing at the little curl over her nose, and she leaned right over his shoulder and slid her phone in front of his face. “Can you work okay like this, looking through my screen? Or is it...here, let me try this.” Both her arms slid around him, and she pressed her fingertips to the edge of her phone and pushed it towards his chest. He couldn’t see her face when her chin was hovering just over his shoulder like that, but he could imagine the look of concentration on it as she worked to get the picture just right.

“Mm, okay. That looks good. Is that going to annoy you?” she asked, standing up straight again and resting her hand over the back of his chair. He could feel her fingers graze against him.

“Nah. Should be okay.”

Honestly, it was kind of strange to have a camera all up in his business like that, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t work around. Iwai got back to it and resumed the process of gutting the gun. It was a relatively simple spring-powered one, which meant he didn’t have to fuck around with any electrical components. Easy enough. The next few minutes were quiet as he focused on the task at hand, but after a bit, he sat back and gestured towards the camera. “You wanna take a look at it and see if it’s worth a damn sitting where it is like that?” He’d rather not get too far into it only to have to turn around and scrap everything they’d shot.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Flipping around, Akira rested her ass against the edge of his desk and took her phone back to examine the footage they had so far. However much of that there was. It did not seem very promising if the slow wrinkle of her nose was any indication.

“Damn, that bad, huh?”

“Ha. It’s not bad.” She glanced up at him, then up higher towards the ceiling. “It’s just that the lighting in here kind of sucks. It makes everything look really washed out. I’d offer to try and edit it to look better, but I don’t know enough about it to promise you that I can do that. The angle is pretty good, though.”

Lighting, huh? That did seem like it would be important. He supposed. Nothing he could do about that, though. Akira had suggested this route because it was free -- replacing the fluorescent lights in his storage room was a fair bit more overhead than he was willing to take on for an experiment.

“Then--”

“Do you have anywhere else we could record?” she interjected, looking back down again and catching his gaze. “I’d offer my room, but to be honest, the lighting there is shit too. How is it in your apartment?”

Iwai couldn’t say he’d ever spared a passing thought to what the lighting in his apartment was like before. It was light. It let him see when it was dark. It did its job. Its aesthetic qualities had never exactly factored into the equation. But more than that, what the hell? That she had so much as considered his apartment a viable studio was enough to catch him off guard, and it was a struggle not to seem as surprised or as vaguely sexually threatened as he felt.

Christ, what was the matter with him? People still circulated that ridiculous story about him beating up fifty guys all at once. He was sure they’d be significantly less impressed by him if they knew that the very thought of being alone in his apartment with a twenty year old girl had him as freaked out and nervy as some sweaty second year trying to touch a boob for the first time. Pathetic. “You...want to come to my place for this? I mean, I don’t know if the lighting’s any good, kid. You’d have to be the judge of that, but you--”

“Okay. Let’s do that, then.” Akira perked up and plucked her phone off the stand. “I can come back after you close up shop and we can go check it out? I don’t mind. I’m not working a shift at Lala’s tonight, so I’m free anyway.”

“Oh. Uh. Okay.”

Smooth.

She left before Iwai could summon the mental faculties to tell her that her availability was not the issue at hand. He’d been too busy watching her bend over to pack up her things and also trying to remember the precise degree of bachelor pad he’d left his apartment looking like before he came in to work this morning. He had, admittedly, been somewhat derelict in his cleaning duties ever since Kaoru left for university. Empty nest syndrome was as hard as everyone always said it was.

Empty nest syndrome. God, he was old.

As promised, Akira made it back to Untouchable a few minutes before closing, and since he hadn’t managed to come up with a good enough reason not to, Iwai took her home with him. It would be fine. Akira was an adult, and this was a professional project. It would only be weird if he made it weird. He was so caught up in reassuring himself that they reached his complex much faster than he was expecting. Probably not the greatest state to be in for driving, but no one was dead. He’d take it.

In the parking lot, Akira climbed off the back of his bike and handed his helmet over to him. “Thanks for the helmet. That was pretty fun. I’ve never gotten to ride on a motorcycle before.”

“No sweat. Glad you had fun.”

They grabbed all their supplies from the saddlebag and headed up the stairs to his apartment, Iwai slipping in front of her so he could unlock the door and push it open. Fuck, he hoped it was clean. Ish.

“Oh, wow.” Akira kicked off her fancy black heels at the door and wandered in eagerly. The distinct lack of horror in her tone was somewhat of a comfort. Small mercies. “Your place is really nice, Iwai. I didn’t expect you to have so many things on the wall.” She left Iwai behind, preoccupied as he was with crouching down to unlace his boots and get out of them, and took it upon herself to circle the living room and admire all the model weapons he had mounted on the walls. For some reason she had her phone held out like she was already recording.

Iwai wasn’t sure what that was about until he joined her by the sofa, and she turned the screen towards him and played back the brief circuit she’d made for him. “Check it out. See the difference? The lighting here is way better. If you’re okay with it, I think we should try to film it here instead.”

That was true. It did look better by a long shot. Damn, he’d never noticed how green that store room made everything look. It wouldn’t be quite as convenient trying to get it done here, but it was a tradeoff he could deal with. If recording from the store room made his products look like trash, that pretty well defeated the purpose of making a video in the first place. “Yeah. That’s fine.”

Together, they got everything laid out on the clean surface of his kotatsu and Akira’s phone repositioned in front of his chest. He’d pulled the futon off to get it out of his way, and Akira set down his craft mat. With that, he got back to work.

To his pleasant surprise, having her there wasn’t as awkward or invasive as he’d feared it would be. Akira was quiet, sitting cross-legged beside him and watching everything he did without disturbing him. A few minutes passed like that, and he glanced over his shoulder at her. “...Aren’t you bored, kid? You can watch TV or somethin’.”

“Huh? Of course not.” She scoffed at him and leaned forward to rest both her elbows against her spread knees. “I like watching you make guns. Same reason people like to watch others paint or draw. It’s...soothing? Satisfying? I don’t know, but it’s nice. Plus it’s always a learning experience. I’m your audience for a video like this as much as anyone.”

Interesting. Iwai nodded slowly as he reassembled the pieces to begin the detailing work. “Think I get what you mean. I can see that.” Silence lapsed between them again; Iwai applied the base coat for a repaint, and Akira observed just over his bicep. He could still catch faint traces of her perfume beneath the heavier smells of paint.

As he finished the base coat, Iwai tilted away from the camera and reached behind him to rub his back. “Er. Now what? We don’t gotta film it dryin’, do we?”

“What? No! I’d like to take my phone home with me preferably.” Akira laughed and got up to her knees, leaned over him, and reached over his arm to stop recording. “We can pick it up again tomorrow. If you’re cool with that, we’ll shoot the rest, and I’ll figure out how to put it all together after we’re done.”

“Sure. You’re the director.”

She seemed to like that new title very much. Akira smiled to herself as she replayed the video, her phone tilted in her fingers so Iwai could see it from over her shoulder. It looked...pretty decent, much to his shock.

Maybe they could do this after all.

* * *

All in all, it took three days to finish filming their first gun. Most likely they could have cut that down if they’d been able to film at Untouchable, but as it were, the only time they had was after he closed up shop. Which, of course, meant there was limited progress to be made in between paint jobs. But it wasn’t so bad. Iwai didn’t find himself minding the extra time at all. It was...nice to hang out with Akira after work. Even if she insisted on wearing seasonally inappropriate outfits and sitting so close to him on his bike that he could feel her tits pressed up against his back.

The film portion now done, all they had left to do was edit. On the fourth day, he bid for Akira to grab his laptop on her way out the door, and they went straight to his apartment as soon as Untouchable was closed and locked down. Well, almost. He did make a small detour to pick up a bigass box of yakitori for them to split.

Back at his apartment, Akira flopped down onto the sofa, popped open his laptop, and grabbed a skewer. “Alright, Iwai. Let’s do this.”

He had no idea why she said that like this was a joint effort. He knew exactly enough about computers to use the inventory program he had for the shop, and pretty much nothing else. Even so, he eased down beside her with two skewers of his own and a can of cherry beer clutched in his other hand.

“You’ll be fine. I‘m countin’ on you, kid.”

Akira had her skewer halfway to her mouth when she pursed her lips and tilted her head up towards him. Iwai stared back at her.

“...What?”

“Nothing.”

She dismissed him and stuffed a piece of chicken into her mouth, still working smoothly on the laptop with her other hand. He was pretty impressed with how easily she managed. Akira got the separate videos they’d made off her SD card, opened up the program she’d taken the liberty of installing earlier that day, and got started even before she’d polished her first skewer off and tossed it onto the empty plate he’d set out for them.

Though he was well aware he’d be no help, Iwai nevertheless stayed there with her on the couch. It seemed like the least he could do after she’d done the same for him. She’d sat on the floor with him in solidarity and monitored the footage the whole time he’d been busy making the gun. Besides, it was pretty interesting to watch her work.

Akira had been perfectly up front with him about how new she was to this. She looked things up every couple of minutes, hopping from one tutorial to the next in between tweaks she made to the video. She was essentially teaching herself a brand new skill on the fly, entirely for his benefit, and it was by far not the first time she’d gone so above and beyond for him. Iwai looked away from her and eyed the skewers in his hand. Suddenly, yakitori seemed like such woefully inadequate compensation as to be laughable. He didn’t deserve her at all.

Ignoring the gravel in his throat, Iwai cleared it, wedged his beer can between his knees, and dropped a heavy hand to the top of her head. “Why don’t you wait and do this on your next shift? No reason for you to be spendin’ your off hours here when you can do it on the clock and get paid. I don’t feel right. You’re not a charity.”

“What do you mean?” Surprised, Akira blinked and lifted her head. “I’m pretty sure I’m the one who convinced you to do it here in the first place. I’m not worried about it. Consider it volunteer work if it bothers you that much--”

“Akira, that ain’t the point.”

She looked put out by that. Or potentially because he’d interrupted her like a jackass. Hesitantly, she swiveled away from the laptop screen and faced him. “Seriously, it’s fine. I wouldn’t be here doing this if I didn’t want to.” For an uncomfortably long moment, Akira fixed him with a frown. When he declined to say anything to break the awkward silence between them, she huffed and looked away from him. “I have two other jobs that pay pretty well. I didn’t come back to ask you for work because I desperately need the money. I just did it because I missed you, and because I’m not stupid.”

Stupid? It almost pissed him off just to hear her say that. He would never call her that. Or even think it. Hell, he’d be the first person to tell anyone who asked how much smarter Akira was than him. Irritated, he opened his mouth to say as much, but she beat him to the punch.

“Be honest, Iwai,” she said, gazing at him from the corner of her dark eyes. “Working at Untouchable is the only possible excuse I could have to spend time with you. Right? It’s not like you’d have said yes if I invited you to come to the movies with me and my friends. You know I work at Leblanc, but you’ve never come to see me while I was on shift, even just to buy coffee. I just...assumed you didn’t want to see me outside of work.”

Great. Now he felt like an asshole. And he couldn’t defend himself either when she was still busy talking.

“I asked for my old job back because I figured that maybe, eventually, you’d see me as an adult. Someone you could be friends with. But you still just think of me as your part-timer, don’t you?”

Iwai had no idea how to respond to her. His first instinct was to reassure her -- of course he thought of her as more than that. But she was right. He certainly hadn’t been treating her like she was anything other than his employee. They only saw each other at Untouchable. He knew every shift she worked at her other jobs so he could schedule her around them, but as she’d pointed out, he’d never bothered to pay her a visit at either one like her friends probably did. They didn’t text or call for anything that wasn’t work-related either. They’d probably spent more time together outside of Untouchable when she was still in highschool than they did now. Why should Akira feel like he valued her as anything more important than a replaceable part-timer?

“I--” Iwai swallowed and moved to ruffle her hair almost as awkwardly as someone’s tryhard step-dad. Why she even wanted an excuse to hang out was beyond him. “Nah. I don’t think of you like that. I’m...sorry. Didn’t think you’d want to be spendin’ time with me outside of work any more than you thought I did.”

Awkward or no, his attempt at an olive branch seemed to work. Akira flashed him a pretty smile and rubbed at the back of her neck again. Cute. “Alright, alright. I forgive you. In that case, in the name of our official friendship, I assume you’re going to let me help you do this for free.”

“Wha-- Fuck that,” Iwai snapped. That’s what she was worried about? Grumpy, he jabbed his finger under her nose. “I don’t let my other friends do shit for me for free either. That laptop you’re usin’ was set up by a buddy of mine who did it in exchange for a custom piece I made for him. You’re not gonna squirm out of it that easy. I ain’t a freeloader.”

“Well then!” Akira laughed at him and playfully shoved his hand out of her face. “Alright, fine, if you feel that strongly about it. I’ll tell you what. When you become internet famous and start monetizing all your videos, then you can give me a cut and we’ll call it even. How about that?”

“...Monetizing?” He could get paid for making his own advertisements? Interesting. She hadn’t mentioned that before. “Alright. Deal,” he agreed, and he thrust his hand out until she shook on it.

“Deal. Now be quiet and leave me alone so I can edit your video.”

Iwai did. She could be a bit scary when she was in a mood. They finished the rest of the yakitori, and he got up to grab another cherry beer for her to sip at while she worked the night away.

All this was so foreign to him that he had no real expectations of what editing would be like. Akira spliced the footage together, cut out frames, experimented with adjustments to the images (as it turned out, she could adjust the lighting, but it was intensive enough that he was glad they’d gone ahead and filmed here anyway), and played around with transitions. It was fun to see her having a good time with her new project.

But he could say he hadn’t expected it to take so goddamned long. As the hours passed them by, Iwai wound up turning on the TV just to have some background noise. He still watched Akira work, but his eyelids were definitely starting to droop.

At some point, they drooped for two whole hours. Iwai startled awake, his head snapping up and his arms jerking where he’d folded them against his chest. Fuck’s sake, how had he fallen asleep so early? Now Akira was really going to think he was an old man. She was still hard at work beside him, so dedicated it put him to shame.

Until he squinted at the clock.

“Fucking shit, it’s one in the morning?!”

Beside him, Akira jumped and blinked. Her eyelids looked every bit as heavy and tired as his felt. “Oh. Wow, it is, huh? I didn’t even notice.”

“You been working all night? Akira, why didn’t you wake me up?” He scrubbed roughly at his eyes and struggled to sit up. The trains would already be shut down. No way Akira was getting home like that. “C’mon, let me take you home. I can drive you. ‘Course, you might not be very popular with your neighbors in the morning, but better than nothin’.”

“But I’m not done.”

“Oh, yes you are.” Iwai scowled and plucked the laptop right off her thighs, only stopping when she made a deeply belligerent noise at him and demanded that he let her save it. He held it open long enough for her to lean forward and click the little save icon, _then_ snapped it shut and placed it on top of his kotatsu. “Go get your stuff.”

Akira yawned and shook her head. “No, it’s fine. You just woke up, I’m not going to make you drive me home. I can call a cab. I’d rather do that, to be honest. I know I don’t have any neighbors proper, but there’s enough people around I’d hate to disturb them.”

Fair enough. Iwai tugged his hat off and tossed it beside his laptop, reaching behind him and scratching the back of his head. Eugh, he was so damn tired. And in the morning, he’d be blaming his obvious delirium for the invitation he was about to extend.

“Why don’t you just stay here? Got some extra pillows and blankets if you want to crash on the couch, and I can take you home in the morning. I’ll feed you breakfast too. You can consider it my apology for keepin’ you out so late.”

“Really? You don’t mind?” Akira yawned again, tilting her head back and covering her mouth. When she dropped her hand into her lap, she gave him a sleepy smile. “If you’re sure. That sounds great.”

Iwai left her on the couch and grabbed a pillow from his bed, along with a sheet and a spare comforter he kept around for when he didn’t feel like waiting for his to dry. He brought them to her and tossed the pillow down first, then handed her the other two. “Make yourself at home. You can come get me if you need anything, alright? Night, k- Akira.”

She chuckled, quiet and dozy, and lay down on the couch with her blankets draped over her. “Thanks. Good night, Iwai.”

He turned the TV off and plunged them both into darkness before he retreated to his bedroom.

As much as he did want Akira to be comfortable, he really hoped she didn’t wind up needing to come get him for anything. Knowing his luck, she slept in nothing but a thong and nipple pasties.

* * *

She did not, as it happened. The next morning, Iwai stumbled out of his bedroom in some serious need of coffee and found her asleep on the sofa. Her arm was curled over the comforter he’d given her, tucked low enough that the white t-shirt she’d been wearing last night was visible. She had also left her bra tossed on the floor. He had to step over it to crouch down beside her and gently shake her shoulder.

“Time to rise ‘n shine. C’mon, let me take you out before I gotta open up.”

Akira mumbled back at him, her voice thick with sleep, and threw him a cranky look. It was only then he noticed that her face was bare, her heavy eye makeup from last night mostly gone save for subtle smudges of black against the edges of her lids. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her without a fully painted face. She looked cute. Especially with snarled curls in her face.

It took some prodding on his part, but she did finally get up and roll off his couch. As she stumbled away towards the bathroom with her bra in hand, Iwai stripped the sofa and folded up the blankets she’d used the night before. His pillow smelled like peach and flowers.

They had breakfast together at the diner she liked so much. He made good on his promise and picked up the tab, then dropped her off at her apartment. She had a shift at the cafe to get ready for, and he still had to make it to Untouchable to open up.

It was going to be a long day without her.

Fortunately, it wasn’t as long as it could have been. Akira surprised him by showing up not long after she finished up at Leblanc. She brought him a coffee and stole his laptop to take in the back so she could get the editing done, and every so often he got up just to go bother her and offer her what small bit of company he could. Man, he had no idea video editing was such an enormous pain in the ass.

After the third hour, Akira sat back in her chair and stretched her arms overhead. “Eugh, finally done. I did not expect it to take that long.”

“You ‘n me both.” Iwai leaned against the workbench and passed her a strawberry ramune he’d picked up for her on his last konbini run. “You think it’s ready to post?”

“I think it looks pretty good, but you’d have to be the judge of that.” Gratefully, Akira accepted the bottle from him and popped the marble down with a noisy ‘thunk’. “You want to watch it with me? You can tell me if you’re comfortable with me uploading it or if you want some more changes.”

Like he would even know what changes should be made. Honestly, he wasn’t chomping at the bit to watch it at all, but if that’s what she wanted, he had no room to argue after the sheer amount of work she’d just done for him. “Alright, let’s see it.”

Akira carried his laptop back to the front and set it down on the counter so they could watch together. She’d gotten it pared down to a fifteen minute video, and despite her being an amateur, the finished product wound up looking pretty damn slick. Not having to look at his own face also helped immensely. The camera was pretty well centered on the gun itself, so he barely paid attention to his own hands in favor of the work being done, just like Akira had said. As soon as it was over, he ruffled her hair fondly. “You did great.”

“Yeah? You like it?”

“I do.” Much to his surprise.

Akira smiled back at him. “Enough for me to upload it?”

Oh, right. They still had to post it on the actual internet. Where any jackass with wifi access could potentially stumble on it. Which was, of course, the whole point. “Er, yeah. Sure. ‘Course.”

Stealing his laptop back, Akira propped it on her knees and closed the video, opening up a browser tab instead and navigating to YouTube. “Good, because I already made you an account.” Sure enough, she typed in some credentials and showed him the profile she’d made. There was a banner stretched across the top that looked like a cropped photo of Untouchable’s fluorescent sign, and their icon was a picture of one of the custom guns he’d made for her a long time ago. God damn, she really was prepared.

She had it at all ready to go. A title. A description. A bunch of ‘hashtags’ that were apparently very important. And now, finally, she had the video itself.

Akira took a short breath before she clicked the last button.

Then both of them stared at the screen.

“...Now what?”

“I guess we wait for the hits to roll in.” Akira chuckled and leaned back in her chair, her face calm, but a subtle sense of excited energy practically sparking off her body. “It’ll probably take awhile to build an audience, but as long as we can catch the attention of the ones willing to buy, then it’ll be worth it.”

Iwai nodded absently. He was busy staring at the thumbnail of their video, squinting slightly and frowning. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were forgetting something. “...Didn’t you mention somethin’ about making a voice over?”

Akira blinked at him.

He blinked back at her.

Her eyes wide, she reared back and opened her mouth.

“Fuck!”

Iwai couldn’t help himself. Laughed bubbled up right from his gut, and reached over and mussed fondly at her wild hair. It was alright. They’d know better for next time.

* * *

Indeed, they did not forget the next time. Akira helped him record his first voice over, which was somehow even more nerve wracking than the video itself. He’d never exactly been much of a talker. Frankly, he’d have preferred to just leave it out entirely if it weren’t for the fact that making model guns didn’t require one to be especially articulate. Not that he wasn’t fine leaving it out regardless. The first video had been plenty successful without it.

He was still surprised by that, truthfully. By the time they were ready to post their second one, Iwai had sixteen whole subscribers. He didn’t know what that meant, but Akira assured him it was a good thing, and he was happy to take her word for it.

To his dismay, the second video was even more popular than the first, which meant Akira was going to make him voice all the rest too. Which she did. With every single one they finished, he could tell Akira was getting better and better at editing. And since that was the bulk of the work, he sure as shit wasn’t going to complain if all he had to do to make her happy was ramble into a microphone about his favorite subject.

Even after they had four videos to their name, he hadn’t noticed much of an uptick in foot traffic, but the online storefront Akira set up for him more than made up for that. They started getting orders by email that required him to talk to absolutely nobody. He built the guns, and Akira took them to the post office to be delivered when he was done. It was perfect.

So they made another video.

And another.

And another.

It felt like it took barely any time at all for business to be booming again, almost as much as it had been in the height of the Phantom Thieves days, when Akira was in his shop every other day buying up all the most expensive models she could get her beautiful hands on. Nowadays, she was at his apartment more often than not, either helping him to record new videos or editing completed ones.

That particular night she was putting the finishing touches on their latest project. Iwai had his feet propped on the kotatsu and an arm draped over the sofa behind her head, partially watching TV and partially watching her. “So that whole...monetizin’ thing you were talkin’ about. When’s that supposed to kick in, anyway?” They couldn’t be that far away from whatever threshold there was, right? Over a hundred people wanted to be notified any time they put out a new video. That seemed like a lot.

Beside him, Akira made a vague noise. “I don’t remember. Stop worrying about it. I’m not.”

She turned her attention back to the laptop as Iwai frowned at her and fished for his phone. Fine. If she wasn’t going to tell him, he could look it up for himself. He Googled ‘YouTube monetization’ with individual pokes of his index finger (she still made fun of him for that, but it was better than his chicken typing on a keyboard). Clicking the first result, he brought the screen closer to his face and read.

“A thousand subscribers?!” he spat. “And you gotta be on there for a whole ass year?” They were a whole zero short of that particular goal, to say nothing of the amount of time they had yet to invest. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me. Akira, that’s too long. I ain’t waitin’ twelve months to pay you back for all this.”

“Are you still worried about that?” Grumpy, Akira cocked her head back at him and slid the laptop onto the kotatsu. “We made a deal, remember? I don’t want your money.”

No matter how much that aggravated him, it was probably for the best. He couldn’t afford the amount of overtime he owed her after this long. She’d spent so much time on some of the longer videos that she’d stayed over and crashed on his couch more than once. Any time she didn’t have a shift at Crossroads, she was here at his place working hard to help keep Untouchable afloat.

Why?

He wasn’t dumb. Akira was a popular girl. Her phone went off regularly with texts and notifications, and she had a ton of friends constantly clamoring for attention. But as far as he knew, she was single. It wasn’t as if she had any time to go on a ton of dates when she donated most of her free time to him and their dorky new joint hobby. Was she really happy with that?

“I just…” Iwai shifted uncomfortably on the couch. Ugh, he wasn’t good at this. Expressing feelings or concern for another person. He was awkward enough with his own kid that he hadn’t the slightest idea how to go about lecturing Akira on her skewed priorities. She’d made it clear she wasn’t interested in any kind of pseudo-dad outside of Sojiro. “Don’t you wanna spend more time with your friends?”

Well, that wasn’t it. Her expression darkened in an instant, her eye narrowing into slits, and he was quick to thrust an empty palm out. “Easy, tiger. Damn. I meant friends your age. If you’re not gonna let me pay you, I’d at least feel better if I wasn’t monopolizin’ your time.”

He was afraid she’d get pissed again, but instead, Akira sighed at him in amusement and curled up on the couch to face him. “It’s sweet of you to worry, but I spend my time exactly how I want to. I told you already, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. It’s not like this is some awful chore. I have a lot of fun with you. Why are you so convinced that I don’t?”

Iwai didn’t really have an answer for that.

Akira eyed him, then dropped one of her legs and shifted closer. “Do you want to pay me back that badly?”

“Tch. Of course I do.”

“Alright.” She jabbed a finger and pointed at her face with a bright red fingernail. “If you really mean it, then I want a promotion.” Iwai stared at her like an idiot. A promotion, huh? Well, that was hardly undeserved. She was less his part-timer and more his advertising executive at this point, but if he could afford to promote her, he’d have done that already.

“Akira--”

She cut him off and whirled on him, sitting up on her knees and staring down at him from her higher vantage. “I don’t want to be just another one of your ‘buddies’, Iwai. I don’t want a friendly tit-for-tat relationship where we only do nice things for each other as some kind of...I don’t know, trade off. Paying me to edit videos I convinced you to make in the first place wouldn’t have even crossed your mind if I was your girlfriend, would it?”

Iwai’s insides twisted into an entire rope of notes. “That’s- You-” He grit his teeth and glowered at her. She really had no idea what she did to other people, did she? “Don’t say smartass shit like that, Akira. It ain’t funny.” 

“I’m not being a smartass, I’m being serious.” She didn’t look the least bit chastised by his words or his frosty tone, simply stared at him and dared him with her flashing grey eyes. A punk through and through. It was no surprise at all that he liked her as much as he did. God damn it. He had no idea what to say to her. Again. But for once, it was less because she’d made him into a tongue-tied moron and more because he just...didn’t know the answer.

He’d never had a girlfriend before. In his yakuza days, he’d never so much as entertained graduating beyond casual sex, and even if he had changed his mind about that after adopting Kaoru, most single women weren’t interested in a man saddled with a kid.

When it became clear he wasn’t going to summon a better answer than being honest, Iwai sighed and rubbed at the back of his head. “I...don’t know. Probably not.”

Akira nodded firmly. “That’s what I thought.” Without warning, she swung one of her legs over his own and hovered over his lap, both her hands bracing themselves against his shoulders. “So? Are you going to promote me? Or are you going to make me earn it first?”

This woman was determined to give him a fucking stroke. On instinct, he reached out to grab her hips, but before he could do anything else, Akira tilted her head and kissed him.

He’d never been so thoroughly addled by a kiss in his life. Her lips were soft as silk, and despite how brazen she’d just been, they were almost...yielding against his. Gentle and maybe even uncertain, like she was afraid he’d buck her right off.

She kissed like she’d never done it before.

His hand slid around her hip and slipped up beneath her thin black t-shirt, spreading across her bare skin, and he tilted his head and kissed her back.

Fuck. There were so many reasons that this was a terrible idea. She was half his age. She was his employee, for fuck’s sake. And he forgot every single one of them as she flattened her breasts against his chest and kissed him deeper.

Akira broke away first, breathing a little harder and with a flush to her face that had no right to be as attractive as it was. “Shit,” he muttered. “You are a fuckin’ force of nature, you know that?”

“I’ll take your word for it. Is that a yes?”

“Yeah. Fuck it. You’re hired.”

The beaming smile she graced him with chased the last of his lingering doubts right out of his mind. But then she paused, bit her lip, and cracked up in a way he had not been expecting. Wh- she was laughing at him!

“It’s- I’m sorry, I guess my lipstick isn’t as smudge proof as I thought it was,” she mused, chuckling harder and dragging the pad of her thumb across his lips. “Sorry about that. You want to help me get the rest of it off?”

Oh.

Well.

He could do that.

Iwai grabbed her by the waist and tossed her down onto the couch, burying his fingers in her long hair and kissing her again.

The video could wait.

He had a girl to make happy.


End file.
